Cool For Cats

Google and I often have long, convoluted arguments – I mean discussions, of course – over the photographs I take. Remarks such as – “the colour ranges from pale green to purple” – whatever their veracity, are hardly helpful. With flowers, this can be ameliorated by a nice clear picture of the leaves or stems of the plant, but when we come to grasses, Google is not at his best.

This photo is probably, or might be, or even could be, Cock’s-foot. This is not a bad thing for it to be, Cock’s-foot is widespread across Europe and the UK, it is considered to be ‘very common’ and is often used for hay and forage according to Wikipedia. It could have once been a domestic plant sown deliberately for the above reasons. If so, it has now, not so much escaped into the wild, but more, sort of, wandered away through a hole in the hedge and set up home on our verges. It has the neat habit of using up more than its fair share of the nitrogen in the ground around it and so stopping other plants from crowding it out. I just wonder how it intends to replace that nitrogen so it can continue to grow, itself. Personally, I would put this tactic into the ‘short-sighted’ category.

Google found several places that mention that indoor cats like to have a tray of Cock’s-foot around, as a dietary supplement, so it is now often known as Cat Grass.